Battlefield 2042 is $60 right now. One of my friends on Steam plays Battlefield 2042 and I thought hey, that would be pretty cool to play with him. I’m sure it wouldn’t be that much because that game came out a long time ago and was extremely poorly received and like, I’m sure it would be really easy to buy that game or get it now since it’s been so long and again, very low reviews. The game is $60!! But when it goes on sale, it’s like 8$, so 80% off. Truly unbelievable. Why do they do this? Like, they’re basically trying to kill the game or something because no one in their right mind would pay $60 for this game, so 90% of the time when it’s not on sale, no one buys it or wants to try it out… Also, lots of old games that are “on sale” constantly for like $5 and the base price is 40-60$, so it makes it seem like SUCH a good deal, when in reality, the value has just depreciated…
They never seem to lower the base cost of anything, making it deceptive. Is it really 80% off of a $60 game if no one in their right f*cking mind would pay that much for it ever?
You’re allowed to say fucking on the internet
Can you not get it from a key reseller? As long as your buying it above the minimum sale price it’s probably legit.
To get sorted to the top of the lists for biggest discount. To claim bigger losses in copyright infringement cases. And to increase the perceived immediacy to buy it to get a good deal to take advantage of impulse buying whereas if they have time to think about it they may not buy it at all. Plus rich people don’t care how much something costs, so you’ll get a few of them here and there buying it at full price.
So much this
Also Black Ops 2 is still $60 for the base game and $50 for the season pass. THIS IS A 12 YEAR OLD GAME.
I didn’t know it was distributed by Nintendo!
Not sure where you’re seeing $60. PC Digital purchase through Gamestop is $40.
But this is a problem with digital stores vs. physical.
The physical disc on Xbox is as low as $5 at Gamestop:
https://www.gamestop.com/video-games/products/battlefield-2042---xbox-series-x/297328.htmlDigital is still $70.
Look, you will have a sizable contingent of people shelling out an additional $20 to $80 just to play a game a few days early, with little to no other benefits. Their impatience is capitalized on.
The PC side of this is not all that bad, outside of EA and Ubisoft.
Meanwhile, Nintendo doesn’t even have sales. Games that launched with the switch are still $60-70.
Nintendo in my experience:
Physical: Get it right on release day (or in the first week after) in retail for about 40€, otherwise you will have to rely on rare good retail discounts to get it below 55€
Digital: Don’t you even dare to think about discounts
This has nothing to do with the gaming industry, specifically. This is a basic (very effective) marketing strategy. But typically federal regulations prohibit them from advertising something as “on sale” perpetually so it has to be advertised at retail price for x% of the time.
Do you know how feasible is lowering the price permanently?
You can put a new permanent low price. You just can’t market it as “on sale” or otherwise discounted.
It’s an attempt at market segmentation. Those who really want to play will pay full price. Less ardent fans wait for a sale.
Did your friend make you want it enough to pay full price?
Did your friend make you want it enough to pay full price?
For $60, I would NEVER buy a game that has mostly negative reviews on steam hahaha
It’s an amazing game, actually 😂
It’s also regularly on sale for around $15-20. OP would do well to wait. They probably don’t even have to wait long.
double post :/
Discounts on games creates a sense of urgency in the buyer, as most discounts are temporary. Since discounts are often shown on the front page of a storefront, it gets a lot of eyeballs on it. If someone’s wishlisted the game then they’ll even usually get a direct notification.
Another way to look at it is that the game is always available at the full price. But if you’re a patient gamer then you can expect to get a lower price eventually.
Depending on how much discretionary income you have, you might be forced to wait for a sale. Or the difference in price might be no object to you. Or you may have to hoist the black flag.
Something else to consider is that the perceived value of the game differs from buyer to buyer. If I’m a big fan of a niche genre, I might be willing to spend more on a weird game than the average user. A $30 game might be worth it for me, but you might only think it’s worth $20
And more to that point, it’s extremely difficult to nail down the exact value of a game. What honestly separates a $12 game from a $15 game when they both offer a unique experience?
Anyway, all this to say, I don’t think having sales on games is strictly a predatory thing. Sometimes a discount is the only way you’ll get eyeballs on your game, or a way to reach more of the market that wouldn’t have otherwise bought your game.
I do agree that modern AAA prices are out there. I don’t pay very much for games now, and usually AAA prices me right out of the market
I get the concept behind it. But it just seems so predatory that older games never depreciate in value. Back in the olden days of GameStop, they would adjust prices. An old game was reduced in price after a certain time since it’s no longer new.
Now, that’s no longer the case. Valve seems to be the only one that does this, as an exception. Left 4 Dead 2 is now $10 standard and that’s not some crazy percentage off discount. That’s just the base price now. Other games though are silly as hell with the pricing. Battlefield games are the most obvious. Priced at a full $60, but the value plummets to $8 when on sale. Why don’t they reprice it to $30 and then on sale for $8? Seems less psychologically manipulative
I agree that it’d be nice if they depreciated in value like in the days of physical media.
In those days though, the store only has a certain amount of shelf space. So in that sense it makes sense that they depreciated because a new game is always going to have a higher perceived value.
Digital storefronts don’t have that problem. The game can be shared infinitely without accruing a ton of publishing costs. There’s always more shelf space.
In this sense, there’s no financial motivation to depreciate. And we all know the social responsibility of big companies will be to only do what they’re forced to do.
We often feel games ought to depreciate because that’s how it’s always been. But just because that’s how it’s always been doesn’t mean that’s how it always will be.
Battlefield is an interesting case though where each game in the franchise is highly derivative of the previous game. So if each new game is essentially an upgrade of the previous one, then I’d agree that there should be an expectation that the older version is less expensive.
The same could be said about many of the giant titles. Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, and most major sports games come to mind.
One final thing to think of is that many games have continuing development. It’s basically the early access model (a whole other can of worms), and you could argue that many of these games appreciate in value. Some notables have - Factorio comes to mind.
I don’t think Battlefield 2042 falls into that category though
It might be due to Valve’s legal and business actions
Steam employee email:
“We wouldn’t be okay with selling games on Steam if they are available at better prices on other stores, even if they don’t use Steam keys.”
deleted by creator
This will be true in the future, but you are absolutely incorrect today.
Uhhh what? Are we talking about the same things? Steam doesn’t do sales to individuals. If they put a game on sale for $8 it’s that price for everyone, unless I’m missing something?
For some people, it’s worth $60. It’s really that simple.
